Wireless telecommunication networks use radio waves to carry information from one node in the network to one or more receiving nodes in the network. Cellular telephony is characterized by the use of radio cells that provide radio coverage for a geographic area, with multiple cells arranged to provide contiguous radio coverage over a larger area. Wired communication can also be used in portions of a wireless network, such as between cells or access points. Wireless communications technologies are used in connection with user equipment, including, for example, satellite communications systems, portable digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, and mobile devices (e.g., cellular telephones). Such devices can connect to a network (e.g., the Internet) as long as the user is within range of such a wireless communication technology. One or more applications running on such devices, such as Voice over IP (VoIP), browsing, streaming media, text messaging and so forth, can engage in an exchange of data packets with another network, such as the Internet, an IP multimedia subsystem, and/or some other provider network.
Currently user data plane paths, such as those in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) access network, are always managed by the control plane in the life of a Packet Data Network (PDN) connection. Indeed, a centralized control plane management scheme is critical to data session establishment, release and management. In mobile communication scenario, such as wireless cellular communications, data plane connections can depend on a mobility state and a session state of a mobility control layer. Heretofore, such centralized control plane schemes have been particularly important for establishing and managing data plane connections in view of variable mobility states.
Consider a mobile user terminal (UE) having established a packet forwarding connection through a packet data network connection. User data packets are forwarded through a radio access node, such as an enhanced Node B (eNB) terminal. If the UE travels out of range of a particular eNB, a handover would be necessary to a neighboring eNB. The handover would result in packet forwarding through a different entity, i.e., the neighboring eNB. Control plane management schemes generally anticipate such mobility and implement the appropriate measures to reconfigure the user data packet forwarding accordingly.